‘Ocean Doctor’ David Guggenheim is kept from severely injured hospitalized wife Svetlana Guggenheim,46 for a month after mystery attack/Wife initially accused husband of attack but has recanted/Guggenheim wins visitation

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By Jillian Eugenios
TODAY.com contributor
updated 2 hours 43 minutes ago

For almost a month, a Washington, D.C. man has been fighting for his right to stay in the hospital with his wife, the victim of a brutal assault in her home seven weeks ago. Though unable to speak, she initially identified him as the attacker, but has since recanted her accusation.

The victim, Svetlana Guggenheim, 46, was found brutally beaten in her D.C. home in early April by her husband, David. An interpreter, she had been traveling for two weeks before returning home. David, 53, a successful marine biologist known as the “Ocean Doctor” on radio and online, had been away as well, traveling in New York and Philadelphia. Family members became concerned when they couldn’t reach Svetlana, alerting her husband. He allegedly rushed home.

‘It was horrible’
On Wednesday, David Guggenheim described what he found to TODAY's Matt Lauer: "I took the next train home in the morning and came home and found her lying on the bedroom floor. A lot of dried blood. She had been here a while. A horrible black eye in her left eye. She was shaking and incoherent. It was horrible." Among Svetlana's injuries was a blood clot serious enough to require brain surgery.

At first, David was by Svetlana's hospital bedside almost constantly. But Washington, D.C. police suddenly banned him from her room after Svetlana told a nurse that her husband had been the attacker. According to court documents, it was “Ms. Guggenheim’s explicit wishes that plaintiff [her husband] not be permitted to have contact with her.” Family members say that now Svetlana has no memory of saying that.

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David went to court to fight the accusation, during which time he wasn't allowed to see his wife for a month, an experience he called “agonizing.” He told Lauer that when he was finally allowed back, “I didn’t know who I would see when I got to the hospital, but she’s herself, she has her faculties.” He reported that his wife is thin, frail, and fed by a feeding tube, but can now walk.

According to Guggenheim, his wife’s memory is returning, but she does not remember the incident. She cannot speak due to a tube in her throat, and she communicates with her family and hospital staff through writing and typing on an iPad. Anna Pavlichenko, 25, Svetlana’s daughter from a previous relationship who now lives in Florida, was also barred from seeing her mother. Pavlichenko has since been allowed back, and her first visit took place this past Mother’s Day.

‘I want to see my husband’
In an earlier interview with NBC News, David said the first question Pavlichenko asked her mom was whether it was he, her stepfather, who had beaten her. Sveltlana reportedly said no. “Anna and I wrote a statement for her to sign that said, ‘David didn’t directly or indirectly harm me. If there is a document that says I did, that should be invalid. I want to see my husband. Restore visitation.’”

Pavlichenko also interviewed her mother on camera about the incident. Sveltlana reportedly shook her head that no, her husband was not the attacker. Guggenheim said, “I emailed that information, the statement and the videotape to the DA and to the hospital.”

Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt told TODAY, "A combination of the husband's travel records, phone records, and surveillance cameras from the apartment should help the authorities rule him out, as long as they have a very tight time frame of when the actual assault took place."

Guggenheim says he has receipts that show he was away when the attacks occurred and that police are not taking steps to rule him out. “They have seemed actively disinterested in anything that would show that I was out of town during this incident ... I also told them I wasn’t alone during that trip at all, except when I was on the train. I gave them the names of all the people I was with, and they haven’t called a single person.”

Though Guggenheim can now visit his wife, he still feels as though he is a person of interest in the case. He arrived home last night to find authorities in his apartment with a search warrant, seizing digital media, such as computers and Sveltlana’s phone. The police have not commented.

Guggenheim insists domestic violence does not exist in his relationship with his wife. The couple have been married for 18 years. “It’s a peaceful home,” he said, adding that what the police have done to his family is wrong. “This was inhumane, to allow Svetlana to be waking up from this sort of injury isolated from the people she needs the most around her — her husband and her daughter.”

Guggenheim said he is speaking out not to clear his name, but to put a spotlight on what he thinks is a case mishandled by D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.

“I’m very confident about my name in this,” he told Lauer. “I’m speaking out because of the way MPD has handled this, without a court order that has kept a family apart at their time of need. That should alarm people.”

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05/29/2012
WASHINGTON -- A lawyer for a prominent marine biologist whose wife was found severely beaten last month says D.C. authorities have told him their investigation is not focused exclusively on his client.

Aitan Goelman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he provided police and prosecutors with evidence showing that David Guggenheim was out of town when his wife Svetlana was attacked. Guggenheim reported finding her badly beaten in their Washington apartment on the morning of April 7. Guggenheim has said he's been unfairly treated as a suspect and was denied the right to visit his wife at the hospital for weeks.

But Goelman says authorities told him they're "looking at all possibilities and not simply focusing" on Guggenheim.

Guggenheim is a scientist and television commentator who calls himself the "Ocean Doctor."
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May 24, 2012
WASHINGTON — A marine biologist and television science commentator whose wife was brutally beaten in Washington last month says police have been investigating him in the attack and that he was for weeks denied visitation rights at the hospital.

David Guggenheim said in a message to family and friends that he returned April 7 from an out-of-town trip to find his wife, Svetlana, with a fractured skull, brain trauma and "incoherent" on the bedroom floor of their Washington apartment. He said police started focusing on him as a possible suspect even though he says he had proof that he was not in Washington at the time.

"What I didn't realize was that (the D.C. police department) would be blinded by their suspicion of me as the assailant and that they didn't take even minimal steps to verify my story in order to clear me as a suspect," Guggenheim wrote.

Police have not said why they would consider Guggenheim a suspect. Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump declined comment Thursday because the investigation is ongoing. A grand jury is weighing the case.

Guggenheim, who posted his account on a blog last week, said two police detectives met him at the hospital April 19 and told him that he could not visit his wife until they received a statement from her. Guggenheim sued D.C. police May 7, saying they had barred visitors from seeing his wife in the hospital when she needed her family most. His wife has had surgery to remove blood and other fluids from her brain and to implant a tracheotomy tube and a feeding tube. She has a breathing tube and hasn't been able to speak.

Guggenheim, a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation in Washington, has explored coral reefs in Cuba with CNN's Anderson Cooper and bills himself as the "Ocean Doctor." The couple has recently been experiencing financial difficulties, with bankruptcy filings showing them listing more than $400,000 in liabilities.

He declined to discuss the specifics of the case with The Associated Press over the last two days on advice of his lawyer, except to say that police had shown an "unhealthy interest in me" and that he had hired an attorney to defend against possible criminal charges. The lawyer, Aitan Goelman, declined comment Thursday.

He says the police responded to his court complaint by presenting a handwritten note from a nurse saying that his wife had "indicated her injuries were caused by her husband." He says he believes the document to be a fabrication, and Svetlana Guggenheim has told The Washington Post that she doesn't remember anything about the attack or about who assaulted her. Guggenheim said a nurse told him last Thursday that he could again visit his wife. He thinks that permission came because his wife signed a separate statement, videotaped by her daughter, indicating that Guggenheim had nothing to do with her injuries and that any statement to the contrary should be considered invalid.

His biography on the Ocean Foundation's website says he has led international marine conservation projects and is interested in sustainable fishing and brining ocean exploration and conservation programs to young students. He has appeared on "60 Minutes" and other programs to discuss marine research and conservation.
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For almost a month, a Washington, D.C. man has been fighting for his right to stay in the hospital with his wife, the victim of a brutal assault in her home seven weeks ago. Though unable to speak, she initially identified him as the attacker, but has since recanted her accusation.

The victim, Svetlana Guggenheim, 46, was found brutally beaten in her D.C. home in early April by her husband, David. An interpreter, she had been traveling for two weeks before returning home. David, 53, a successful marine biologist known as the “Ocean Doctor” on radio and online, had been away as well, traveling in New York and Philadelphia. Family members became concerned when they couldn’t reach Svetlana, alerting her husband. He allegedly rushed home.
‘It was horrible’
On Wednesday, David Guggenheim described what he found to TODAY's Matt Lauer: "I took the next train home in the morning and came home and found her lying on the bedroom floor. A lot of dried blood. She had been here a while. A horrible black eye in her left eye. She was shaking and incoherent. It was horrible." Among Svetlana's injuries was a blood clot serious enough to require brain surgery.
At first, David was by Svetlana's hospital bedside almost constantly. But Washington, D.C. police suddenly banned him from her room after Svetlana told a nurse that her husband had been the attacker. According to court documents, it was “Ms. Guggenheim’s explicit wishes that plaintiff [her husband] not be permitted to have contact with her.” Family members say that now Svetlana has no memory of saying that.

David went to court to fight the accusation, during which time he wasn't allowed to see his wife for a month, an experience he called “agonizing.” He told Lauer that when he was finally allowed back, “I didn’t know who I would see when I got to the hospital, but she’s herself, she has her faculties.” He reported that his wife is thin, frail, and fed by a feeding tube, but can now walk.
According to Guggenheim, his wife’s memory is returning, but she does not remember the incident. She cannot speak due to a tube in her throat, and she communicates with her family and hospital staff through writing and typing on an iPad. Anna Pavlichenko, 25, Svetlana’s daughter from a previous relationship who now lives in Florida, was also barred from seeing her mother. Pavlichenko has since been allowed back, and her first visit took place this past Mother’s Day.

In an earlier interview with NBC News, David said the first question Pavlichenko asked her mom was whether it was he, her stepfather, who had beaten her. Sveltlana reportedly said no. “Anna and I wrote a statement for her to sign that said, ‘David didn’t directly or indirectly harm me. If there is a document that says I did, that should be invalid. I want to see my husband. Restore visitation.’”

Pavlichenko also interviewed her mother on camera about the incident. Sveltlana reportedly shook her head that no, her husband was not the attacker. Guggenheim said, “I emailed that information, the statement and the videotape to the DA and to the hospital.”
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